News & Updates
Update: February 2024
Now that the Climate Action Plan has been drafted, it's time to check back in with the broader Hampshire community to field questions, gather feedback, and foster shared support for our commitments. Over the course of the Spring semester, staff and students from the Sustainable Hampshire office will be reaching out to students, staff, and faculty, as well as interested alums and the Board of Trustees. Outreach efforts include:
Meetings with divisions/departments
Meetings with student groups
Open office hours/Q&A
Community survey
It is essential that everyone understand how our proposed Commitments might impact work and life at Hampshire, and that we explore together how to support and incorporate climate action across campus. This is a first step in empowering staff, faculty, & students to take ownership of the CAP and their role in helping Hampshire achieve our goals.
Remember, this CAP is a DRAFT; all components are up for discussion, debate, and refinement— we need your input to make this guiding document reflect the many voices that make up Hampshire College.
If you'd like to chat about the CAP, or any other sustainability-related issues on campus, please reach out or come to an open event.
Sara
CAP Development Process
This 2024 Climate Action Plan was developed by the professors and students of Climate Action Unbound in the Fall of 2023. Unlike typical climate action planning, which is often led by an outside consultant or internal expert working group, this process prioritized student learning as a key part of the process. Climate Action Unbound was a comprehensive, semester-long project designed to advance climate action at Hampshire College.
Members of this project came with a broad list of backgrounds and interests, making Climate Action Unbound a group with diverse skills and experiences. Early on in the process, the class decided the CAP would be incomplete without the input and ideas of everyone on campus. As such, the majority of the semester was spent either in conversation with or presenting our ideas to the various groups on campus that the CAP would affect. These included students, staff, and faculty associated with the Environments and Change LC, the Farm Center, OPRA, Dining Center, and Facilities & Grounds, and conversations with members of the Board of Trustees during the September 2023 meeting. In addition, the class conducted a community-wide survey to evaluate the habitats, knowledge, and needs of campus inhabitants.
Climate Action Unbound Student Updates, Fall 2023
A rainbow over the Kern Center, taken December 4th, 2023
Update: Week of December 4th, 2023
Hi! I’m Skylar, here to fill you in on what we’ve been up to this week!
A very exciting development happened this week in that our CAP if starting to take its final shape! We spent the beginning of the week re-reading and revising each other's assigned CAP sections so they could finally be compiled together. All of our pieces are now in one document and we’ve spent a lot of time this week evaluating it as a cohesive whole. I personally have been working on the sections of the cap that outline our development process and a plan for how the CAP will be sustained in the future. It has been very rewarding to see these pieces take shape and exciting to combine them with the writings of my fellow classmates.
Here is a day-to-day outline of other things we did this week:
Monday:
We spent the morning continuing the revision process.
We met with Hampshire alums Tristan Grant and Carl Hourihan to discuss building energy efficiency. Both of them work in building efficiency & sustainability improvements and they helped us by outlining some steps that Hampshire could take to electrify campus.
Wednesday:
We compiled all of our final draft CAP sections and reviewed them as one single piece. We evaluated the things we liked about it and other things we felt could use some work and things that might be missing. We specifically focused on drawing connections between Hampshire’s vision and Climate Action’s vision as well as what our standards for purchasing carbon offets should be.
We met with Charlotte Del Col and Zach Hallock from Competitive Energy Services to talk more about steps for electrifying campus as well as how the electric industry works.
Thursday:
We spent the morning drafting the list of acknowledgements and references for the CAP.
Met with Steve Duffy, Hampshire’s director of facilities, to ask a variety of questions mainly centered around campus infrastructure and energy.
We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying snacks brought by our TA Sean, and taking time for everyone to work on whatever they needed time for.
Update: Week of November 27th, 2023
Hey! Reid Pitman (he/him) here. I’m a Div II student.
Lately, class has been focused on collaborative climate action plan writing. We’ve been debating outlines, paragraph lengths, and wording. We really want this to be an accessible document for any level of environmental knowledge, so it’s important we focus on all things great and small. We each signed up for a couple of sections to draft in the CAP and have been bringing those drafts to each other to get input and guarantee it accurately represents our group and campus ethos. Additionally, we each have our own "seed projects," which are more focused initiatives to be implemented in support of the CAP goals. I’m working on creating a Hampshire College Earth Day Celebration!
Monday
Alllll the peer review, consisting of several groups that then scrambled to allow for more input on our CAP sections. And all the words and thoughts and sentences. We’re really trying to hone in on concise and clear wording, especially for our commitments.
Wednesday
We checked in on seed projects and worked on our drafts in small groups. Sara (she/her) gave us an update on the progress of the Hampshire College Decolonization and Reciprocity Working Group, which is charged with cultivating right and reciprocal relationships with Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples locally, regionally, and beyond. Most related to our work, they are talking with local tribal leaders, land conservation trusts, and others to figure out how to steward and share Hampshire's land.
In the afternoon, we met with alum Naia Tenerowicz, 21S (she/they) from Climate Action Now (MA) and the Springfield Climate Justice Coalition to discuss her work and learn about climate justice events happening in real time around us. We also got to ask them for advice on outreach and staying positive. She had some great info, inspiration, and tips for us!
Thursday
We submitted our draft summaries of our seed projects and continued with MORE peer review. I worked on this update! We applied a climate justice lens - based on our conversation with Naia and some guiding questions - to our seed projects. We ended the day with a walk around the solar fields to learn a bit more about our electrical infrastructure and appreciate the last of the daylight.
Update: Week of November 6th, 2023
Hello! My name is Elisa, happy to bring this week's update.
During the weekend, we dispersed posters throughout campus with the survey QR code. This was done to further enhance input from our community. One of the posters was put up in most of the bathroom stalls around campus as a marketing technique.
On Monday we caught up on the outreach work that each of us is doing around campus. We updated the presentation and outreach questions to be more adequate and prepared for our next outreach projects. We went over expectations on one of the final projects for the semester, a focus project, and shared ideas of the possibilities of what those could be. Following that, we worked on the areas of focus that the 2024 CAP is going to include, and on the introductions and guiding principles of those.
Kayla Schlenz, the director of Restorative Practices came to our class on Wednesday morning to help us plan our outreach, talking about power dynamics and intentionality. Wednesday afternoon, seed project tpoic submissions were assigned for the 20th of November.
On Thursday, the CAP outline draft was reviewed and edited by the whole class and we continued working on the focus area projects.
Some of the outreach we did this week were: on Tuesday two students went to the Student Advocacy Board open meeting, on Wednesday Sara assisted the International Community Dinner with a student, and on Wednesday and Thursday morning students went to the farm to hear from candidates for the Farm Director and Vegetable Manager positions.
Update: Week of October 29th, 2023
Hi everyone! My name is Chance and here’s what we have been up to in Climate Action Unbound. On Monday and Tuesday we attended AASHE (The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education) conference in Boston. At the conference my classmates, professors, and I attended a wide variety of sustainability related events ranging from simulations (mimicking the Conference of Parties), to games, to more traditional lectures, and even a master class taught by former NAACP President Ben Jealous.
Some of the AASHE Conference Meetings we Attended:
Queer Climate Justice which examined queer justice, environmental Politics, LGBTQ vulnerability, and policy recommendations for LGBTQ people, as well as queer ecology and how queer animals are overlooked in the world of science.
Developing Climate Hope, Antidotes to Climate Anxiety examined the emotions surrounding climate change and ways to combat and deal with these issues
Five of my classmates and I attended a Conference of Parties simulation with groups such as new tech, conventional energy, land use and forestry, emerging nations, etc. That used “The En-ROADS Climate Solution Simulator” that allowed us see how real world changes now will impact emissions and global temperatures in the future.
Carbon Crunch- a board game in the making where the goal is to reduce emissions at a institution/organization, while still dealing with real world obstacles like finances
Thursday’s Class:
On Thursday we debriefed on our AASHE trip and shared our major takeaways, which included getting a better grasp of how cultural norms influence the world of sustainability as well as seeing behavioral changes when vegan options are made the norm at an institution. We then spent time with our individual groups making plans for the upcoming weeks and deciding on individual projects for our CAP! We also spent some time dedicated to reaching out to community members to get their perspectives on the CAP and to make sure it is well understood by members of the community. We finally spent the remainder of class breaking into groups who analyzed the data from our survey, and edited our mission statement ,vision statement, and sustainability definition.
Update: Week of October 23rd, 2023
Hey y’all, Tai here with the weekly update. Big update, our community survey is live! Current students, staff, and faculty, we'd really appreciate your input.
What have we done this week?
Monday:
We continued our work with Will Syldor-Severino
Ezra Markowitz, Associate Professor of Environmental Decision Making visited our class to discuss environmental social science and science communication. Some questions he posed to us:
What are our responsibilities as individuals? As a college?
Why climate action?
What are the trade offs?
Wednesday:
Focus Area groups gave update presentations to the class. We heard from groups on land management, waste management, food & farming, and finance.
A number of our students participated in the national walkout for a free Palestine.
We shared an update at the Decolonize and Decarbonize Symposium.
Thursday:
Dr. Ann Ward, Education and Outreach Specialist at Tufts Univ Office of Sustainability, visited and gave us a presentation on her research on the relationships between emotions and collective action. She posed the question “How do people engage with climate change and not get eaten up by fear?”. We discussed the importance of viewing hope as a cultivated practice and collective action of its own.
We had a class discussion about the Yale Environment 360 article “Unequal Impact: The Deep Links Between Racism and Climate Change” By Beth Gardiner. We talked about how environmental racism impacts our work, and how it shows up in Western Massachusetts.
We did our final prep for our trip to the AASHE Conference and Expo next week in Boston!
Update: Week of October 16th, 2023
Tally-ho all! My name is Isaac, and I’m bringing you this week’s update of what the Unbound class has been up to. Our Focus Area groups are meeting with their respective stakeholders and reporting back very positively. The amount of community support we have received so far is inspiring for the continuation of this process.
What have we done this week?
Chris Wenz, Hampshire College’s Assistant Director of Institutional Research, came to our class to aid us in developing the community survey we hope to start distributing to students, staff, and faculty (keep your eyes out for that, we’ll want your input). As well as showing us the ins and outs of the Qualtrics program, he helped us (or at least me) rethink how the structure of our questions affects the form of the information we gather.
Tai, Elisa, and I ran a pilot session of a visioning exercise we hope to do with larger peer groups. It was a variation of the discussion format we used when meeting with the Board of Trustees a few weeks ago. We brought a few friends to the Kern for an hour and produced some neat ideas for what Hampshire’s future could look, sound, or even smell like.
Avery and I sat in on the Student Advocacy Board’s open meeting on Tuesday night. We were able to introduce ourselves and briefly outline the goals of the class, discussing how we hope to maintain communication with SAB throughout the drafting process. They are a very dedicated group of students, and collaborating with them will broaden our ability to engage campus.
Most importantly, we ate a LOT of clementines this Wednesday
Update: Week of October 9th, 2023
Hi everyone:) I’m Lizzie here with some updates from this week. We mainly focused on community outreach strategies and templates for groups on/off campus. We asked each other which groups we specifically wanted to hear from then prepared general and distinct questions for each of them. We also went over themes that we have been researching for the upcoming CAP (Climate Action Plan) such as Mission Statement, vision for CAP, audience, Hampshire values, and our shared sustainability definition. In addition, William Syldor-Severino (Assistant Dean of Transformative Justice and Antiracism), continued to work with us to tie in transformative justice and awareness into our thinking around community and accessibility.
What have we done this week?
Some of us (the small groups that we’re in) have met or are going to meet with change-makers to help answer our questions about current services and systems on and off campus.
We discussed (in small groups) important themes that are important to the CAP and later on, switched groups to give everyone a chance to share their thoughts and perspectives on the topics.
Met with William Syldor-Severino, the Assistant Dean of Transformative Justice and Antiracism.
We went over what we discussed in our previous meeting with Will, which was community expectations, transformative justice, accessibility, self-awareness, and oppression from social and economic systems.
Talked about why awareness and accessibility is important to our CAP- because we care about making it accessible to everyone and we want to find ways to break down systemic barriers in sustainability.
We brought up questions like “How do we get everyone to share their input?” and “What are ways to reach out to people?”
We thought of ways to include local and broader communities that involve staff, students, faculty, alumni, board members, and individuals who wish to engage in this process from Hampshire to the Five College Consortium.
Talked about ways to improve support for people of color, people who represent different social and economic classes, who represent different nationalities, international students, disabled students, and people who want their stories and backgrounds to be heard.
To finish off, we went into small groups and did an awareness exercise where we talked about our geographic and class background, social and political views, home experiences, and our similarities/differences.
Update: Week of October 1st, 2023
Hello everyone! My name is Lousig and here are some updates from this week's classes. We're working mainly on outreach and getting our questions for the community answered so we can brainstorm what kinds of solutions we want to see in our Climate Action Plan, and how we'll make these changes happen. One challenge we're facing is how intersected all of our focus areas are, and we have lots of questions for the community in several areas, so coordinating meetings has required a lot of planning, but we're up for the challenge.
What have we done this week?
Debriefed from our meeting with the Hampshire College Board of Directors.
Discussed and brainstormed a mission statement for the new Climate Action Plan.
Planned meetings with staff members to answer questions we have about current on-campus operations, and create an open dialogue with community members.
Toured the Kern Center along with the Food Future class taught by Andrew Yang.
Gave a presentation about Climate Action Unbound and facilitated a breakout group about visions for Hampshire College sustainability at the Environments and Change LC Gathering.
Brainstormed questions for a campus survey to assess community needs and wants from our food systems, barriers to practices such as recycling and composting, and potentially assessing sustainability literacy.
Read sections of Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown, which explores how to create change on a local and systemic level, and discussed methods of implementing emergent strategy through our work on the Climate Action Plan in our class, within Hampshire College, and in the surrounding community.
Update: Week of September 25th, 2023
What have we been doing so far?
Reviewed other colleges' CAPs to understand the structure and purpose of a CAP, took notes on and gave constructive criticism on our neighbors' plans.
Reviewed Hampshire's previous CAP to better understand our previous goals, where we're at policy-wise, and the general campus culture.
Learned the importance of greenhouse gas accounting, and broke down the carbon emissions of the college by scope.
Learned about RECs and how Hampshire uses them to achieve 100% renewable energy use.
Reviewed and scrutinized many administrative, economic, and scientific strategies for the college to reduce emissions, sequester carbon, lessen the college's environmental impact, establish funding to advance environmental sustainability practices, and raise awareness.
Analyzed the structure of Hampshire college and identified how to gather information, opinions, support, and critiques from the administrative and student bodies.
Met with President Ed Wingenbach of Hampshire College, Director of Sustainability Stephanie Ciccarello of the Town of Amherst, and Director of Sustainability Weston Dripps of Amherst College to discuss visions, obstacles, and how to successfully implement goals.
Key Values
Working with the community to generate a plan that fits the college and empower the students. We want to avoid a top-down approach that doesn't consider lived experiences.
Being aware of social disparity and environmental injustice to foster an inclusive, equitable and just Climate Action Plan.
Making our ideas and plans transparent and broadly accessible, proactively inviting community input.
Working collaboratively and fostering trust between ourselves, as well as with members of the community.
Big questions we're asking ourselves
How will our policies affect people?
How do we initiate meaningful conversation about the overwhelming, looming prospects of climate change?
How do we ensure the new policies of the CAP are followed through? How do we foster lasting cultural change?
What does it mean to be carbon neutral? What are acceptable methods to achieve it?
How do we balance land use for agriculture, solar, forestry, et cetera?
How can we learn from our errors, and how can future generations build on our current work and intentions?
How do we plan for changing obstacles, opportunities, and technologies in the future?
More about our class
The Climate Action Semester Unbound is a deep dive into sustainable changemaking. Together we're developing and drafting a new Climate Action Plan (CAP) for Hampshire College. Climate Action Unbound students are developing project and community engagement skills as we create a campus input process and draft iterative versions of the CAP. We are also engaging directly with issues of power, race, and inequity as we work to imagine a future that benefits all members of our community and the natural environment. Guest instructors, staff collaborators, field trips, and working with off-campus partners take this semester out of the classroom and into the community.
The semester engages four main areas of focus:
Intro to Climate Change, Policy, and Systems: Students will develop an understanding of systems thinking, the basics of environmental impacts and climate science, and an overview of the structures and policies of climate mitigation. Students will conduct case studies of other Climate Action Plans, visit other institutions to see some strategies in person, and talk with Hampshire staff and faculty to better understand our own campus infrastructure.
Creating Institutional Change: A crash course in creating effective and equitable institutional change, featuring discussions of equity in impact and understanding the relationship between policies and community behavior/values.
Building Community Process: Students will plan and implement a community input process for the CAP; this may include hosting workshops/listening sessions, creating outreach materials, engaging with Admin, and more.
Drafting the CAP: Communication for Change: Students will collaboratively draft the Climate Action Plan, with work in graphic design, writing, and data visualization. Students will also develop a final presentation to share the process and outcomes with the greater campus community.